First foray into e-marketing a success, say students, professor

April 6, 2000

KALAMAZOO -- Thirty-one graduate students at Western Michigan
University's Grand Rapids Regional Center are wrapping up the
University's first e-marketing course and many of them already
are applying lessons from the fast-paced, fluid course to their
jobs in west Michigan.

"The internet is becoming such an important vehicle for
marketing information that we felt an immediate need for a course
like this," says Dr. Roberta Schultz, professor of marketing,
who taught Electronic Marketing during winter semester. "It's
no secret that electronic commerce is revolutionizing the industry
and we obviously felt it was crucial that we keep up with the
trend."

How does one teach a course on a medium which changes on a
daily, even hourly basis? According to Schultz, she and the students
relied on one another. As part of the coursework, students brought
in "contemporary business examples" -- information on
timely, internet-related topics for discussion in class and on
an online bulletin board. And Schultz's classroom was wired; if
a student had heard of a new technology or visited a new and interesting
Web site, the class logged on immediately.

"Part of the allure of e-commerce is that it is so dynamic,
but that is also part of its danger," says MBA student Eric
Hansen, who took the course to become more attuned to the new
Web-based business model. "There are no facts proven by history
which can be written in a text book. Clearly, it's going to be
another 10 to 20 years before the legacy of e-commerce is proven.
The Internet may prove to be a great fiasco, but certainly it
will have been very exciting."

Hansen teamed up for a class project with Tim Parker and Jim
Taylor, two of his coworkers at Bissell Inc., where Hansen is
a research and development manager. With the blessing of the company's
Web director, the trio tackled a vexing problem with online sales
of its new ProLite vacuum cleaner.

"The internet is basically this wild, wild west, with
prices running all over the place," Hansen says. "Obviously,
we can't completely control pricing, but we did want to get some
handle on what was going on out there -- our consumers expect
some consistency. People were even stealing Web site content from
our site and posting it inappropriately on their own sites, and
we knew we had to get this problem under control."

So Hansen and his cohorts, as their class project, developed
an affiliate program in which independent dealers agree to a minimum
retail price and share revenues and referral fees. Bissell will
provide participating companies with a Web template into which
they can simply drop their company name and logo, creating an
immediate and polished online presence. These templates also solve
the issue of content theft from the Bissell site.

"Instead of being nasty or confrontational with these
folks, the affiliate program allows us to provide a win-win situation
for both parties," Hansen says. "Our consumers will
find more equal pricing and they won't be seeing pilfered or outdated
information. The content will be appropriate, and the symbols
and trademarks correct. And the companies, especially the mom-and-pop
shops, will get a professional presence on the Web that they otherwise
could never have afforded."

Like Hansen, MBA student Tim Ruffini is using the information
he learned in the course on the job. A product analyst with Haworth
Inc., Ruffini says he took the course to learn about the latest
technologies and understand how the Internet is driving today's
business issues and opportunities.

The course helped Ruffini realize that a new Web model is quickly
emerging.

"I've learned to think of the Internet as more than just
a cyber-catalog, somewhere you go to learn about the features
and benefits of a product," Ruffini says. "I'm thinking
bigger, in terms of communities, relationships and experiences.

"For example, if you go to a site that sells running shoes,
yes, that site has information on the features and benefits of
those running shoes. But maybe it also has a link to information
on health and fitness, or something that leads into a personalized
program to increase your running performance. Suddenly, it's not
just the shoes, it's the workout and the shoes and how they interact
with your life."

That's exactly the kind of sophisticated thinking that Schultz
had hoped her course would spark. Although some have suggested
that e-marketing could someday be taught online, Schultz says
the personal interaction between students was invaluable.

"We had students at many different levels, from those
who designed Web sites for a living to those who had very little
knowledge of the Internet," she says. "They learn from
each other, and forced one another to think in new ways."

Schultz is slated to teach the course again in the Winter of
2001.

"You could almost take the class again next year, as fast
as the Web is changing," Ruffini says. "The technology
that drives the class will be completely different and it could
be a completely different course in just a semester or two. One
thing that surprised me was the volume forecasted for e-commerce.
This isn't like the supposed video conferencing revolution that
never really took off -- the Internet is going to change all our
lives."